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23his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Punishment of a Rebellious Son; Burial of
Malefactors. (b. c. 1451.)

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son,
which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his
mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not
hearken unto them: 19 Then shall his father and his mother
lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and
unto the gate of his place; 20 And they shall say unto the
elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious,
he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones,
that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all
Israel shall hear, and fear. 22 And if a man have committed
a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang
him on a tree: 23 His body shall not remain all night upon
the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he
that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not
defiled, which the Lord thy God
giveth thee for an inheritance.

Here is, I. A law for the punishing of a
rebellious son. Having in the former law provided that parents
should not deprive their children of their right, it was fit that
it should next be provided that children withdraw not the honour
and duty which are owing to their parents, for there is no
partiality in the divine law. Observe,

1. How the criminal is here described. He
is a stubborn and rebellious son,v. 18. No child was to fare the worse
for the weakness of his capacity, the slowness or dulness of his
understanding, but for his wilfulness and obstinacy. If he carry
himself proudly and insolently towards his parents, contemn their
authority, slight their reproofs and admonitions, disobey the
express commands they give him for his own good, hate to be
reformed by the correction they give him, shame their family,
grieve their hearts, waste their substance, and threaten to ruin
their estate by riotous living—this is a stubborn and
rebellious son. He is particularly supposed (v. 20) to be a glutton or a
drunkard. This intimates either, (1.) That these were sins
which his parents did in a particular manner warn him against, and
therefore that in these instances there was a plain evidence that
he did not obey their voice. Lemuel had this charge from his
mother, Prov. xxxi. 4. Note,
In the education of children, great care should be taken to
suppress all inclinations to drunkenness, and to keep them out of
the way of temptations to it; in order hereunto they should be
possessed betimes with a dread and detestation of that beastly sin,
and taught betimes to deny themselves. Or, (2.) That his being a
glutton and a drunkard was the cause of his insolence and
obstinacy towards his parents. Note, There is nothing that draws
men into all manner of wickedness, and hardens them in it, more
certainly and fatally than drunkenness does. When men take to drink
they forget the law, they forget all law (Prov. xxxi. 5), even that fundamental law of
honouring parents.

2. How this criminal is to be proceeded
against. His own father and mother are to be his prosecutors,
v. 19, 20. They
might not put him to death themselves, but they must complain of
him to the elders of the city, and the complaint must needs be made
with a sad heart: This our son is stubborn and rebellious.
Note, Those that give up themselves to vice and wickedness, and
will not be reclaimed, forfeit their interest in the natural
affections of the nearest relations; the instruments of their being
justly become the instruments of their destruction. The children
that forget their duty must thank themselves and not blame their
parents if they are regarded with less and less affection. And, how
difficult soever tender parents now find it to reconcile themselves
to the just punishment of their rebellious children, in the day of
the revelation of the righteous judgment of God all natural
affection will be so entirely swallowed up in divine love that they
will acquiesce even in the condemnation of those children, because
God will be therein for ever glorified.

3. What judgment is to be executed upon
him: he must publicly stoned to death by the men of his
city,v. 21. And
thus, (1.) The paternal authority was supported, and God, our
common Father, showed himself jealous for it, it being one of the
first and most ancient streams derived from him that is the
fountain of all power. (2.) This law, if duly executed, would
early destroy the wicked of the land. (Ps. ci. 8), and prevent the spreading of the
gangrene, by cutting off the corrupt part betimes; for those that
were bad members of families would never make good members of the
commonwealth. (3.) It would strike an awe upon children, and
frighten them into obedience to their parents, if they would not
otherwise be brought to their duty and kept in it: All Israel
shall hear. The Jews say, "The elders that condemned him were
to send notice of it in writing all the nation over, In such a
court, such a day, we stoned such a one, because he was a stubborn
and rebellious son." And I have sometimes wished that as in all
our courts there is an exact record kept of the condemnation of
criminals, in perpetuam rei memoriam—that the memorial may
never be lost, so there might be public and authentic notice
given in print to the kingdom of such condemnations, and the
executions upon them, by the elders themselves, in
terrorem—that all may hear and fear.

II. A law for the burying of the bodies of
malefactors that were hanged, v. 22. The hanging of them by the neck
till the body was dead was not used at all among the Jews, as with
us; but of such as were stoned to death, if it were for blasphemy,
or some other very execrable crime, it was usual, by order of the
judges, to hang up the dead bodies upon a post for some time, as a
spectacle to the world, to express the ignominy of the crime, and
to strike the greater terror upon others, that they might not only
hear and fear, but see and fear. Now it is here provided that,
whatever time of the day they were thus hanged up, at sun-set they
should be taken down and buried, and not left to hang out all
night; sufficient (says the law) to such a man is this
punishment; hitherto let it go, but no further. Let the
malefactor and his crime be hidden in the grave. Now, 1. God would
thus preserve the honour of human bodies and tenderness towards the
worst of criminals. The time of exposing dead bodies thus is
limited for the same reason that the number of stripes was limited
by another law: Lest thy brother seem vile unto thee.
Punishing beyond death God reserves to himself; as for man, there
is no more that he can do. Whether therefore the hanging of
malefactors in chains, and setting up their heads and quarters, be
decent among Christians that look for the resurrection of the body,
may perhaps be worth considering. 2. Yet it is plain there was
something ceremonial in it; by the law of Moses the touch of a dead
body was defiling, and therefore dead bodies must not be left
hanging up in the country, because, by the same rule, this would
defile the land. But, 3. There is one reason here given which has
reference to Christ. He that is hanged is accursed of God,
that is, it is the highest degree of disgrace and reproach that can
be done to a man, and proclaims him under the curse of God as much
as any external punishment can. Those that see him thus hang
between heaven and earth will conclude him abandoned of both and
unworthy of either; and therefore let him not hang all night, for
that would carry it too far. Now the apostle, showing how Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law by being himself made a
curse for us, illustrates it by comparing the brand here put on him
that was hanged on a tree with the death of Christ, Gal. iii. 13. Moses, by the Spirit,
uses this phrase of being accursed of God, when he means no
more than being treated most ignominiously, that it might
afterwards be applied to the death of Christ, and might show that
in it he underwent the curse of the law for us, which is a great
enhancement of his love and a great encouragement to our faith in
him. And (as the excellent bishop Patrick well observes) this
passage is applied to the death of Christ, not only because he bore
our sins and was exposed to shame, as these malefactors were that
were accursed of God, but because he was in the evening taken down
from the cursed tree and buried (and that by the particular care of
the Jews, with an eye to this law, John xix. 31), in token that now, the guilt
being removed, the law was satisfied, as it was when the malefactor
had hanged till sun-set; it demanded no more. Then he ceased to be
a curse, and those that were his. And, as the land of Israel was
pure and clean when the dead body was buried, so the church is
washed and cleansed by the complete satisfaction which thus Christ
made.